Lomographic Goodness

Lomo cameras a throwback to the era of James Bond, the cold war, John Le Carre novels and J. Edgar Hoover. I realize that any schmuck can go read the synopsis on the Lomo craze but I figured I'd give you all a little rehash straight from my regurgitated heart. The "Lomo Kompakt Automat" (Lomo L-CA) was created when General Igor Petrowitsch Kornitzky decided after seeing a Japanese mini-camera that the Russian government could and should reverse engineer said camera and make it better. The Russian government used the LOMO Russian Arms and Optical factory to then produce this camera for countless vodka swilling Russian citizens and sexy hot KGB spies with code names like Agent Triple X (Major Anya Amasova). Russians have to have some of the best names, I'm not even Russian and I want to have a daughter named Anya. The camera was discovered by some Europeans while traveling on holiday in Prague and after taking pictures with it had a premonition (I think we can lay this one at the feet of the "Sword of Omens") that if they took this camera and ran with it that they would spawn a whole generation of photo taking urban hipsters. I dug around the site a little more and it appears that the original Lomo L-CA was discontinued in 2005 which means that now your only choice is to buy a camera at a local shop, Ebay or from the Lomographic Society Internationals website.

Why do I care about this stuff? I dunno, I'm kind of a camera photo nut, I love cameras, I love taking pictures, and I especially like quirky weird cameras. Now lets clear something up, the only OLD camera I have is the Minolta SRT-101 which I believe was made somewhere between 1971-1975. I have this camera because when I was in high school I took a years worth of photo classes learning how to take pictures, develop film, develop pictures (dodge/burn/over develop), make photos look old, use a copy stand to take pictures of old photos that no one has negatives for etc, etc. The camera that I learned on was my Dad's Minolta SRT-101 that he received when he graduated from OU (Ohio University) in 1969 from his parents. It's got a nice heavy solid feel to it, it's all manual (focus and aperture), with the exception of a very simple but effective light meter system. Using a camera without a light meter makes me shudder, the whole having to use a separate device to get the light reading just sounds a whole lot like work. I like cameras the way I like Harleys, there's all this metal, glorious shiny metal and chrome. The lines are straight and clean and the product feels rock solid. Right so back on this Lomo camera thing, on DWR's (Design Within Reach) site I saw that they were selling the Lomo Fisheye and Lomo Sampler cameras at half off. DWR is a company that sells modern furniture and going by the name you would THINK that it would be affordable, but you'd be WRONG. So the fact that I found two Lomo cameras on DWR's site at $25 a piece was too much for me to not pick up. Now that I think about it finding cheap Lomo cameras on DWR's website might be another great "hell freezing over" analogy, too bad it's too wordy. I'll have to work on that one, maybe turn it into a haiku.

Now these Lomo cameras I got differ from the Lomo L-CA as they do one and only one thing. The Lomo L-CA is a point and shoot camera that has the ability to add different accessories among which are: fisheye adapter, tunnel vision lens, ambient light flash, latte maker... alright no latte maker. They also have a very primitive focus system and I believe an equally primitive aperture system, but they do have one. The Fisheye camera is a little plastic point and shoot camera that has a flash, view finder, no focusing, no aperture control and a fisheye lens that gives it a 170 degree viewing angle. If it works this will be a deal in itself as 35mm SLR fisheye lenses can be anywhere from $200-$500 and digital point and shoots can be anywhere from $100-$200. The other camera the Super Sampler is again plastic with a nice tacky rubber feel, no view finder (hole with which you look through to frame your picture), a non-traditional film forwarding method (a round ring attached to a string that you pull), and four separate lenses. How it works is that on one single negative you will get four separate shots taken sub seconds apart from each other. I'm treating these cameras as fun little gimmick test subjects and if I like them enough I may throw down the cash to get a refurbished Lomo L-CA off of the Lomographic Photography Institutes website.

I realize I could get one from Ebay however if I buy it from the Institute it comes with a 2 year International warranty on it which is kind of huge in my mind when we are talking about a refurbished Russian camera (Unlike a klashnikof rifle the staple of haters of freedom and bedouins). Plus it comes with all those accessories and hipster photo books that makes my inner hipster go "goo". Oh and for those who know about these cameras I realize that as far as taking consistent photos these things aren't the way to go. I also realize that the Lomo cameras are over hyped potentially pieces of junk but it's the fun factor that I'm all about. The idea that these cameras create super saturated, unexpected pictures brings a sort an improbability back in to taking pictures. Sure I can fuss with my digital, or tinker with the ASA, aperture or focus on my SLR but having a camera that I basically have no idea how the picture turns out adds a bit excitement. Also as I will have no preconceived notions on how my picture will turn out I won't be let down when picture that I take don't turn out the way I remembered. Then again I could be equally bummed out that none of the pictures come out, as I said this is an experiment. Lets Lomo! err or something.